Conference to initiate scale-out of PRO-COAST, a HORIZON project
📆 Tuesday 13th October 2026, 17:00 – 18:15 CEST
📍Organised at the European Parliament, Brussels, Room ASP 3H1
A PROactive approach for COmmunities to enAble Societal Transformation is an unusual environmental project due to a strong basis in social behavioural science, favoured for governance as a “Nudge” approach. Among 20 partners (in 14 countries) who organise 10 case studies in diverse coastal areas, most Work-Package leaders are social scientists, with coordination of science provided by the European Sustainable Use Group (ESUG).
This is the third EU-funded project led by ESUG, an organisation with IUCN-origin which works to bridge between local stakeholders who hunt or fish and those who mainly watch wildlife. Our previous project designed a Transactional Environmental Support System, for decision-making that is bottom-up as well as top-down. Local people speak their own languages, so we launched a 25-language website which attracted a glowing endorsement from European Commission. ESUG was then commissioned by NGOs, IUCN and UNEP to build multilingual networks to conserve species, for agricultural biodiversity and for cooperations across local stakeholders more generally. The PRO-COAST project is building a Community Sustainability Platform (CUSP) into these networks, to encourage and inform sustainable use of ecosystems and their services by all interests.
During 2023-26, PRO-COAST has pioneered new online tools. These tools include a social Deep-Change tool to help stakeholders cooperate for community transformation, a Conservation and Human-Use Index (CHUI) for assessing progress, and (brand new concept!) a family of self-improving apps that provide Reciprocal Environmental Decision Support to local managers of land-and specie. Most tools for environmental decision support are only in English but our tools for use by local communities will all be multilingual.
Our final conference, illustrated by work in the 10 uniquely beautiful case studies, will explain how these tools attract to the Community Sustainability Platform, which is in 14 languages already. The conference will initiate the scale-out of the system across Europe and globally, for which European Commission has given ESUG responsibility until 2033.
DRAFT AGENDA
17:00 – 17:05: Welcome and opening remarks by MEP Rodrigues
17:05 – 17:15: Introduction to PRO-COAST – Dr. Julie Ewald (PRO-COAST)
17:15 – 17:25: Reflections on the PRO-COAST project – Emmanuela De Menna (REA)
17:25 – 17:35: PRO-COAST: Key conclusions and project outputs – Prof. Robert Kenward (PRO-COAST)
17:35 – 17:45: Response from the European Commission or an external expert
17:45 – 17:50: Closing remarks by MEP Rodrigues
17:50 – 18:15: Networking reception with light refreshments, accompanied by case study posters and digital displays showcasing the project’s work
